Product Owner

At American Equity we offer leading annuity products that help empower our clients to fulfill their needs and wants in retirement. Our success comes from hiring high-energy individuals who embody the beliefs that drive our unique culture. We currently fund over half a million retirements nationwide, and have been headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa, for over twenty-five years with satellite offices in Charlotte, NC and New York, NY.

GENERAL PURPOSE OF THE JOB:   

The product owner is responsible for defining product features and ensuring development aligns with business goals.  Working closely with the Product Manager and cross-functional teams, the Product Owner acts as a liaison between stakeholders and development to deliver high-quality product increments, in return maximizing the return on your investment and generating revenue. 

A Product Owner takes ownership of the product developing, researching and gathering user stories, which describe the product from the user’s perspective. The Product owner is responsible for managing the priorities, vision and execution of product development, through the development lifecycle—known as a sprint.

**Position sits in Des Moines and will work an onsite schedule**

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:  

• Pertinent Business domain experience (ex: Annuities, Customer Care, etc)
• Define and prioritize product backlog items based on business value and customer needs.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to gather requirements and translate them into clear user stories
• Work with the scrum team to ensure a shared understanding of features and priorities
• Participate in sprint planning, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews and retrospectives
• Continuously refine and adjust the product backlog based on feedback and changing priorities
• Make data-driven decisions to improve product performance and customer satisfaction
• Develop scope and define backlog items that guide the Agile development team ensuring items are ready for development and have acceptance criteria.
• Ensure that delivered features meet the acceptance criteria and align with the product vision
• Liaises with other Product Owners to identify dependencies and mitigation strategies
• Tracks progress towards the release of a product, monitoring and evaluating product progress at each stage of the process
• Communicates progress, risks and outcomes to leadership
• Provides reports to update PMO, Management and stakeholders on product development operations
• Analyze customer opinions and feedback to determine features or components that will add good value to a product

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES: N/A

EDUCATION AND/OR EXPERIENCE:  

• Bachelor’s degree in applicable study or four years of product or project development experience and a minimum of three years (preferred) of experience working in an agile environment, successfully driving end to end delivery of data and intelligence solutions.

CERTIFICATES, LICENSES, PROFESSIONAL DESIGNATIONS:

• Product Owner certification is preferred

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES:

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to engage, influence, and inspire partners and stakeholders to drive collaboration and alignment
• Strong stakeholder management skills
• In-depth knowledge of Scrum and Agile Development Methodology
• Working knowledge of product development architecture
• Proficiency in the use of analytic tools
• Ability to prioritize effectively
• Excellent knowledge of user-centered design principles
• Ability to work with large teams
• Understanding of design quality standards
• Strategic and Creative thinking
• Analytical and problem-solving skills

This description covers the major purpose and essential functions of the job.  It is not intended to give all details or a step-by-step account of the way each task is to be performed.  Employees may receive other job related instructions and be required to perform other job related work requested by their manager.  All requirements are subject to possible modification to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities.